Automatic De-Essing Using Relative Sibilance Energy Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional de-essers require manual parameter settings and are ineffective in reducing sibilance in both loud and soft parts of a performance, as they rely on absolute signal levels, leading to inconsistent processing and potential over-processing or under-processing of sibilant sounds.
Innovation Solution
An automatic de-esser that processes audio signals by dividing them into buffers, transforming them into the frequency domain, and applying multi-band compression based on relative energy comparisons and zero-crossing rates to determine attenuation, independent of absolute signal levels, allowing for consistent sibilance reduction across varying audio levels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional de-essers use absolute threshold parameters for gain reduction, then they can reduce sibilance in loud parts of performance, but they fail to effectively reduce sibilance in soft parts and require manual intervention for each session
Solution Approach 1:
The de-esser automatically detects sibilance and adjusts compression parameters without manual intervention by analyzing the input signal characteristics. The system self-adapts to different performance levels and singer characteristics, eliminating the need for sound engineers to manually tweak threshold parameters for each session while maintaining effective sibilance reduction across both loud and soft parts.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts compression threshold and ratio parameters based on the instantaneous energy level of the input signal. By using relative energy comparisons rather than fixed absolute thresholds, the de-esser adapts its behavior to match the dynamic range of the performance, effectively handling both loud and soft sibilance without requiring manual reconfiguration.
2Reliability
If conventional de-essers are set to act on loud sibilance, then they can reduce prominent sibilance, but they either do not act on soft sibilance or require manual intervention to tweak threshold parameter over time
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the reference parameter from absolute threshold values to relative energy ratios. By comparing the energy in the sibilance frequency band relative to the total signal energy, the de-esser maintains consistent detection accuracy across different volume levels. This parameter transformation eliminates the need for manual threshold adjustments while reliably detecting both loud and soft sibilance.
3Ease of manufacture
If conventional de-essing techniques use absolute parameters, then they can be simple to implement, but they act differently on the same performance after overall signal level changes
Solution Approach 1:
The de-esser implements a universal processing approach that works consistently across different signal levels by using normalized energy ratios. The same relative threshold comparison logic applies whether the input signal is loud or soft, ensuring processing consistency without requiring separate parameter sets for different volume conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer program products of automatic de-essing are disclosed. An automatic de-esser can be used without manually setting parameters and can perform reliable sibilance detection and reduction regardless of absolute signal level, singer gender and other extraneous factors. An audio processing device divides input audio signals into buffers each containing a number of samples, the buffers overlapping one another. The audio processing device transforms each buffer from the time domain into the frequency domain and implements de-essing as a multi-band compressor that only acts on a designated sibilance band. The audio processing device determines an amount of attenuation in the sibilance band based on comparison of energy level in sibilance band of a buffer to broadband energy level in a previous buffer. The amount of attenuation is also determined based on a zero-crossing rate, as well as a slope and onset of a compression curve.